Apple + Software & Apps

Your Mac’s Password Can Be Slurped from a FireWire Port

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Passware, a company that provides computer forensics tools, has released a product that can grab your password via a FireWire port in seconds. The company’s new forensic toolkit captures data from your Mac’s memory, analyzes it quickly, and reveals passwords for your user account, and for your keychain, if that password is different. And it can do this even if your Mac is asleep, and even if you have FileVault encryption activated.

However, there is an easy way to protect your Mac from this type of software. Turn off your Mac instead of putting it to sleep, and turn off Automatic Login, as we suggested in a recent Mac Security Tip.